THE PIECE
In 1965, Singapore became an independent country and needed to form an army; the government's solution was to reach out to Israel, who sent a delegation from the IDF to train the first officers of the Singapore armed forces. To avoid backlash, the public was told that these visitors were agricultural experts from Mexico. The Mexicans investigates the maneuvering that took place behind the scenes in both Singapore and Israel that led to this collaboration, juxtaposing these historic events with the present-day crackdown on pro-Palestine activists in Singapore and elsewhere.
THE ARTIST
Jeremy Tiang was awarded an Obie for his bilingual play Salesman之死 (Yangtze Rep/ Connelly and Singapore International Festival of the Arts). Other plays include A Dream of Red Pavilions (Pan Asian Rep) and The Last Days of Limehouse (New Earth), as well as translations of plays by Wei Yu-Chia, Chen Si'an and Zhan Jie. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize, and he is the translator of over 30 books from Chinese, including the National Book Award-longlisted To the East of the East by Ping Lu. Tiang trained as an actor at Drama Centre London.